


this is a happy ending

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, angry Daisy, angsty sex, post episode 510
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 18:38:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13642161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Daisy decides Coulson can't die.





	this is a happy ending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).



**one.**

“You can’t die.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m still _angry_.”

It’s so unfair, she thinks.

“I’m sorry,” Coulson says. “I know this is unfair.”

Her jaw tenses. The familiar anger, she should be better at it. Except she’s only felt it in Coulson’s presence a handful of times. He has no idea, does he? He is watching her pace the room, her stance apologetic but his eyes showing no signs of regret. He’d do it again, they seem to say. Of course he would. That’s the whole point, Daisy thinks.

“I can’t believe you’ve forced me to be in a position where I could hurt billions of people,” she says. Coulson softly shakes his head, but says nothing. He doesn’t believe it, he can’t consider even the possibility. And while Daisy appreciates it - the part of her that is not searing anger and hurt - she knows he is a fool for it. “And now I can’t even be angry at you because you’re freaking dying.”

She stops herself as soon as she says it, because now she understands it for the first time, what it means, now she tastes those words - _he’s dying_ \- in her mouth, the way one would scratch a sore to stop it from healing.

They talk some more, they must have, but Daisy doesn’t quite remember what’s being said. She raises her voice, more than she would with anyone else but Coulson. She hates that this is part of it all, that she _can_ be angry at Coulson, that he makes her feel safe enough to be angry, the one person in the world she doesn’t fear would leave her because she raises her voice. That means he should have understood better. He should have stopped. She doesn’t remember what she says, or what he replies - she thinks he remains silent for most of it - only that she finds her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt and her head against his shoulder, her lips moving with more recriminations and Coulson encouraging them, the way they are holding each other now not exactly a reconciliation.

 

**two.**

“You can’t die,” she says, almost like a threat.

This time Coulson shrugs.

“Why not? We’ve watched better agents than me die.”

Daisy wants to protest the “better” part, but it feels cruel to the fallen, that she has never met anyone as good as Coulson and that’s true, but the look on Coulson’s face gives her pause, and she knows he’s thinking about Victoria Hand and Trip and Lincoln and even Andrew, who wasn’t an agent but he died for the cause, except _the cause was her_ , and Trip and Lincoln too, died for her, and all the people Hive killed, and Koenig who died because of her too, and all the people Ward murdered because Daisy was weak and let him live, those are the better agents Coulson is thinking about now, and now Coulson is dying - though those words seem to fall weightless in some kind of void inside her stomach and they never really reach her understanding - and it’s hard not to believe she’s not the cause again. The deal with the Ghost Rider, if one unravels all of it, how Fitz only thought of building a murder robot after so many friends had died - friends who died for Daisy, again. At the end of every deathly equation the answer is always her and Daisy gets angry at Coulson again, putting everybody in danger once more, instead of letting her stay in the future, where this rotten fetid thing inside of her, this grim birthright, couldn’t hurt people anymore.

 

**three.**

“You can’t die,” she whispers, like a revelation, sitting - falling, softly, as if she didn’t weight at all, the same kind of lightness she felt when she woke up in Coulson’s arms, before she understood the situation - on the bed of her bunk.

Coulson stares at her, questioningly, he doesn’t notice the change in her, how Daisy has understood something that puts her closer to him. Up until now what she couldn’t comprehend why Coulson was so sure she wouldn’t destroy Earth like everyone was saying, why he thought the evidence insufficient, the mere idea ludicrous. That’s how she feels about Coulson dying now, like something has been switched on inside of her - it doesn’t excuse him, his faith is no substitute for the risk he’s imposed on her, but she _gets it_ , she finally gets the idea of the inconceivable.

The tension shifts between them, it’s not healed, but suddenly it’s become more companionable.

 

**four.**

“You can’t die because... there are so many things I don’t know about you yet.”

Coulson smiles. “Like what?”

She grasps for something, anything. It’s almost comical. They are sitting next to each other on the bed, their bodies touching the whole time. Daisy thinks of the million little things she wants to know about Coulson, tiny and ordinary and wonderful thing that she always feels so shy about asking. She catches one.

“Like, what does the J in _Phillip J Coulson_ stands for? Your file doesn’t say.”

“John.”

This renders Daisy speechless for a moment. Of all the things.

“John? That’s…”

Coulson sighs.

“Very boring?”

“No,” she replies quickly. “Very you.” Coulson arches an eyebrow. “ _John_.” She tastes the name. Of course. “John. The everyman who isn’t like any man I’d ever met.”

He kisses her. It’s almost easy, standing this close together. Just a small turn of the head and -

“Perhaps I wanted to do that before dying,” he admits after the fact. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m still angry at you,” Daisy says, lifting her fingers to his chin, pressing her mouth against his again.

“I know,” Coulson tells her.

She grabs his head in her hands, kisses him, pushes him down on her bunk, she opens him like ripe fruit. Coulson takes her hand away when she places it on his chest, trying to undo his shirt, but everything else he lets her do to him, like some sort of atonement. He makes Daisy feel selfish, take things from him, take his fingers and push them inside her, trap him against her mattress as she rides his hand, everything afterwards an attempt to get the thoughts out her mind, both the thoughts of Coulson dying and the thoughts of herself splitting the planet apart. She wonders, at some point - Coulson with his cock hard, his eyes closed, so entirely exposed and at her mercy - if it’s not the same for him, if he is trying to forget both the world outside and what’s inside of him, if that’s why this is so easy, why they fit so well, why they both come so hard.

 

**five.**

“You can’t die.”

“Why not?” His voice almost like a private joke between them - Daisy likes that.

“Because I don’t want you to.”

“We don’t always get what we want,” Coulson says, bitterly, but gently, his fingers drawing soothing circles on her temple.

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

She laughs softly, then he does, and then her again, a little louder, a kind of hysterical chuckling because _our luck, uh?_ but it’s hard to feel entirely unlucky right now, just bittersweet, with her head on his shoulder and her hand over his chest - she doesn’t feel the mark under his t-shirt, just the warmth of him, the same as in the rest of his body, like this it’s hard to believe there’s anything wrong with Coulson, pressed against her body he just feels alive and solid and fragile in all the good ways, familiar and new at the same time. The regret that they should have done this a long time ago, the knowledge that this couldn’t have happened any other way. Probably.

Coulson sighs and buries his face in her messed up hair and closes his eyes. He’s tired. God knows _she_ is. Daisy copies him, settling against the hollow of his arm and draws her knees against her chest under the bed covers. They have so little time, but maybe they can sleep a bit. Daisy feels she hasn’t slept in _months_. And it’s not fair, all this warmth and softness here in her bed.

 

**six.**

“You can’t die.”

Coulson blinks, speechless by pain and her sudden appearance. But she knows the question in his eyes all too well. There are debris all around them, two cosmic forces in fight, one fighting to possess earth, the other Coulson’s soul.

“Because I’m saving you,” she replies.

 

**seven.**

She watches his delicate eyelids tremble, flutter half-open and then close tightly, his face wrinkling trying to shut the hospital-like lights out.

Confused at first - _I bet he is_ , Daisy thinks, a bit smug.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer immediately, maybe he can’t, her throat sore from the medicines - and the screaming perhaps, Daisy remembers him shouting at her to let him go, like a fool - or maybe he’s just trying to figure it out himself, how he feels.

“Better, I think…”

He looks at his chest. The mark is still there but it’s both receding in size and fading in color. While Coulson was still out she managed to talk to Robbie - he said he’d always be marked, that it might not disappear completely, but he’ll survive. She doesn’t remember the rest of the conversation, just that she tasted those words - _he’ll survive_ \- over and over in her mouth.

“What did you do?” Coulson is asking now.

“I stopped your heart,” she says. “And then I started it again. Like in Flatliners.”

Coulson blinks - she knows that gesture, a clear signal that he caught her pop culture reference, but he doesn’t entirely appreciate her timing. That wasn’t all she did, of course, but they’ll have time for the play-by-play later.

He looks at her, his eyes finally focusing. “Thank you,” he says. As if that was necessary. As if Coulson himself hadn’t already done everything and anything - including shooting her with an ICER - to save Daisy.

Daisy reaches and finds his hand on the side of the bed. It’s so strange, after having been so intimate, that she should feel shy about physical contact now. She guesses she always will, in a way, which Coulson. She grabs his hand tentatively, stroking the knuckle with her fingers. It makes Coulson draw a long breath, like the touch itself offers relief. That makes her happy, it’s all she ever wanted. He moves his fingers underneath her hand, subtly, as if in hopes that she doesn’t notice what he’s doing, entwining their fingers together.

Daisy wants to believe this is a happy ending, not a reprieve. But even that doesn’t sit well with her, because she doesn’t want an ending. Perhaps a soft parenthesis, not an epilogue.

“Are you still angry at me?” he asks.

And she can tell he means it, she can tell that now that he doesn’t have the safety net of dying he’s terrified of losing her like this.

Daisy nods, slowly. “Yes. So very much.” Then then hint of a smile. “But we’ll work it out. Together.”


End file.
